Nancy Kruse, Bret Thorn discuss kids in restaurants

Kruse Company president Nancy Kruse asks how restaurants can satisfy parties with children and the childless.
Take a deep breath, Bret, because we’re going to plunge headlong into one of the hottest debates in the business. We’ve tackled touchy topics in the past, like the controversy surrounding GMOs and the state of casual dining, but these issues are child’s play in comparison to the heated debate over little kids and their place in restaurants that cater to big ...

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Discuss this Article 2

This is indeed a tough topic that it involves multiple parties and the dining experience. I feel that your article addresses only two of the parties: restaurant employees/operators and the parents themselves. What about the other patrons? Do they deserve a discount or do they take it out of the server's tip since the parents of the rowdy kids will be making up for it?

The worst incident I have experienced was a large party that had several kids continuously running around their table or to different areas of the restaurant. This tripped up the servers and had them running on both sides of my table. My wife asked the manager to do something but he only responded that the group was about to leave. While we had tolerated it already for 25 minutes, we asked to be moved to a different section. Thankfully our server was better than the manager as the parents continued to stand around for another 30 minutes mostly ignoring the children until one of them fell and loudly hit their head on the floor.

There are laws controlling barking dogs, there should be social norms that control crying kids.

If the parents are not self aware enough to excuse themselves and depart with the kids, in the interest of the overall experience for the rest of the patrons, management should show the offenders the bill and the door ASAP!

As an owner/manager I would reward the table who left on their own, perhaps a table on me on their return.